Maduro’s U.S. drug trial officially scheduled for 2027 in Brooklyn

Judge Alvin Hellerstein set June 1, 2027, as the start of Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores’s U.S. criminal trial on drug-trafficking charges, with the pair in a Brooklyn jail after a January raid; prosecutors say Maduro helped move cocaine into the United States in a conspiracy with Venezuelan authorities, while they have pleaded not guilty and face possible life sentences, and defense lawyers question the legality of their detention as protesters gather outside the courthouse.